


The Experiment

by LyraNgalia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Experimentation, F/M, Human Experimentation, Light BDSM, Light Bondage, Made For Each Other, Riding Crop, Science Experiments, Sensory Deprivation, Sexual Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 02:45:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sherlock Holmes discovers that Irene Adler applies the same rigorous, exacting standards to her experiments as he does to his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My own personal experiment at writing something a little less character-driven and a little more sense-driven. For the moment, _The Experiment_ is two chapters long, but if/when the mood strikes me, I suspect more chapters and more rigorous experimentation may ensue.

This was an experiment, he told himself, ignoring the fact that this was the third time he'd repeated the exact same four words in his mind in the last seven minutes. He isn't _afraid_ , he reminded himself, any rise in his heart rate is simply curiosity, the thrill of discovery. It was the same as any chemistry experiment he would conduct.

"Changed your mind?" she asked, from a position somewhere behind him and to his left, judging by the sound of her voice. He couldn't see her, but he could hear the challenge curling through her voice like opium smoke. As if she _expected_ him to back down.

"Of course not," he scoffed. He resisted the urge to turn to face her, to show her exactly how unaffected he was by the prospect, but to do so would be to admit that he had something to prove, that he _was_ on some level uncertain and intimidated. Instead, he kept facing forward, staring at the wall, his fingers steepled against his lips as he contemplated the off-beige paint of the wall (recently applied, and by a painter with a tremor in his right hand, obvious smoker).

He heard her footsteps behind him but kept his attention fixed, focused on the wall. He will _not_ be intimidated by her, not give her the satisfaction of seeing him discomfited, not that he is anything of the sort, he's simply examining the far wall and the second painter's hip condition--

And suddenly without warning his vision went dark, light and his view of the wall cut off by the swath of silk suddenly across his eyes (fine silk, Cambodian make judging by the weave, factory stitched along the hem that rubbed against the bridge of his nose, heavy enough to block out light). "What are you--" he demanded before he caught himself.

This was an experiment, he reminded himself. And he will not give her the satisfaction of knowing she's surprised him, of knowing he's _disconcerted_. Not that he is, simply that such an exclamation could be interpreted as such. The silk blindfold, no, silk necktie, tightened around his temples as she secured the knot behind his head, and he found himself twitching, straining to hear every sound now that his sight was suddenly gone.

He heard the hum of the hotel's heating system rumbling quietly between the walls, the soft squeak of a room service cart being pushed by a young man wearing shoes half a size too big three or four doors down. He felt her presence, the radiant heat of her body, close behind him, within arm's reach, and then gone again with barely a sound of stockinged feet on carpet. He had been momentarily disoriented, but as his remaining senses sharpened, his reference system rebuilt itself with the sounds of the room around him and the eddying of climate controlled air through the room.

There was a hiss, and three seconds later the sharp scent of sulfur. A match had been struck, from the other side of the room. A count of six, then an exhale and, two seconds later, the scent of soot. She was closer now and had blown out the match, which meant something had been lit. He twitched when he felt the radiant heat from her body near his arm, and again when he felt the rising heat of a flame against his face. Not close enough to burn, but close enough to be unmistakeable. The smell of paraffin. A candle, most likely taper, slow burning, paraffin wax. And as soon as he recognized what it is, it was pulled away, and the warmth of the candle remained somewhere to his side, on the end table to his left, perhaps.

Her fingers were a cool light touch against the suddenly too-thin fabric of his shirt, and he fought the urge to jump, holding himself tense and expectant at the press of one long nail, trailing up his chest and along his throat before traveling back down. When her finger reached the buttoned collar, she paused, and bone-deep amusement and wicked sensuality twined in her voice with the opium challenge of before as she undid the first button, and the cool touch of fine oiled leather traced along his jawbone.

"We’ll start with the riding crop."


	2. Chapter 2

Twenty-six.   
  
  
Twenty-seven.   
  
  
Twenty-eight.

 

A shaky, breathless gasp.

 

The sharp crisp snap of leather against skin seemed to linger in the room, its echo _hanging_ in the very air despite the fact that she'd stopped striking him when he'd gasped. Her smile was triumphant and predatory, but there was a slow languor to her movements as she set the riding crop on the side table, her fingers lingering over its pliant length. There was a precision to her movements, a precision that she knew he could not see, but that no doubt he was straining to hear over the sound of his own breathing.

And there was no question that his breathing was louder than it had been when he'd walked into the room more than an hour ago. Louder even than when she'd first slipped the silk necktie over his eyes. His breathing was even still, but she could tell by the taut line of muscle and the set of his shoulders that said even breathing was a product of straining control. A control that she'd finally broken with a particularly vicious strike of the riding crop against his side.

She stepped forward, and he twitched, no doubt sensing the change in the way the air shifted, sensed the heat radiating from her body against his skin. She reached up and traced a cool fingertip over his chest, following the line of bright red welts against pale skin. The marks were hot to the touch, and he twitched again as she dragged a fingernail along the one that had made him gasp, tracing it from his left side up towards his sternum. His arms jerked against his bonds, the unbuttoned shirt turned shackles that tied his wrists together behind the chair, and her smile grew.

One pump-clad foot slipped between his feet, kicking them apart, and she stepped further into his space, resting her foot on the seat before he realized what she'd done and tried to resist. Her ankle brushed against his trouser-covered thigh and she was rewarded with another barely suppressed twitch. Her voice was as demanding as the riding crop had been against his skin. “I expect you kept track of exactly how many strikes that was.”

“Twenty seven,” he answered. The words were crisp, sharply enunciated. Too sharply, another obvious betrayal of exactly how much effort he was expending to remain unmoved. He frowned, as if hearing said betrayal in his own voice, and added, “Twenty eight, if you count the time you missed and caught the chair as well as my shoulder.” His attempt to correct for the too-deliberate enunciation missed the mark as well, the edge of breathlessness creeping into his words.

She laughed, at that, and his frown deepened, though he still twitched when she pressed a long sharp nail against his bare shoulder, where a pink welt showed against pale skin. The others were deep, vivid red, each a clear strike. But not that one. She'd remembered it, and the way he'd jerked against his bonds when the blow had been glancing rather than the solid strike he'd expected. “I didn't miss,” she corrected, dragging the perfectly painted nail along the mark. The bite of her fingernail into his skin made him hiss, made him gasp, and she dug deeper, with precisely enough force to hurt but not break skin.

His lips thinned at the continued pain, but his breathing remained controlled, and she let go, leaning back just far enough to reach for the candle still sitting in its holder at his elbow. Her foot remained exactly where it was, the pump-clad toe mere millimeters from his trouser-clad thigh. “Now, Mr. Holmes,” she said, her voice like silk and ice against his ear as her fingers curled around the candle holder. “You have three seconds to make a deduction about what is going to happen next.”

His previously slow-growing erection twitched against her foot.


End file.
